Some
30 children are inflected with the hand-foot-mouth disease every hour, or 700
victims a day, or 5,000 a week.
And, this year to date has seen some 80,000
children being rushed to hospital for treatment of the disease, and still, 137
of them have been killed. The widespread prevalence of the disease puts the
society under tenterhooks, prompting local media to repeatedly grill the Health
Ministry over delays in announcing a national epidemic. The Health Minister in
by all means a straightforward manner says “No.”
Hundreds of news articles have been published
these days, highlighting the seriousness of the epidemic that has panicked the
community from south to north. All the 63 provinces and cities nationwide have
reported the spreading disease, with numerous cases being hospitalized every
hour, especially in the country’s centers like Hanoi and HCMC. Local media and
experts from far and wide have been waiting for the Health Ministry’s decision
to formally announce the epidemic that will help capture the whole country’s
attention and pool the necessary resources to put out the disease.
All are poured with cold water, however, when
Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien in an encounter with reporters this week
vehemently rejected the demand, saying conditions were not enough for
announcing an epidemic.
So a technical question ensues as to what the
conditions are.
The ministry explains that a national epidemic
will be officially announced when two conditions are met: first, the number of
people infected with a communicative disease exceeds that anticipated by a
provincial health authority, and second, the scale of the disease is beyond the
capacity of the provincial health authority, and there must be at least two
provinces or cities announcing the epidemic.
For the ministry, it seems that all other
figures relating to the number of patients or the death toll are less important
than the conditions themselves, though the minister says that health officials
are not negligent over the death of children.
In the meeting with reporters this Tuesday,
the minister downplays the situation in the country, saying other nations like
Japan, South Korea, China or Singapore have not announced the epidemic while
the situation in those countries are more serious than in Vietnam, according to
Tuoi Tre. She asserts that Vietnam is able to control the disease, which has
already peaked out.
The minister admits to the existence of the
epidemic, but stresses that “formally announcing an epidemic will put the
country under emergency, as all agencies must be involved to tackle the
problem, while all foreign visitors to the country must undergo tests,” says
Sai Gon Tiep Thi. Therefore, “in both theory and reality, announcing an
epidemic now is not appropriate,” the minister is quoted on the newspaper as
saying.
Sai Gon Tiep Thi refers to the World Health
Organization’s guidelines over the lack of transparency as the root cause
behind reluctance or postponement in announcing an epidemic. “Economic damages
are often cited to explain for the lack of transparency in communicating about
an epidemic, but the first concern for a public health official must be the
health of the people,” according to the paper.
The newspaper also compares the current
situation with the previous occurrences of SARS and avian influenza epidemics
in the country, when Vietnam formally announced the diseases and heaped praises
from the international community. In those previous situations, the number of
fatalities was much smaller.
Lao Dong brands the ministry’s standpoint as
“stubborn,” sarcastically commenting that “this ministry expects the epidemic
to subside after peaking out.”
With nearly 80,000 patients and 137
fatalities, “this ministry still defies calls to announce the national epidemic
for fear that (such an announcement) will affect tourism, transport and other
facets of the society.” The paper questions if the Health Ministry is putting
human lives at stake.
The hand-foot-mouth disease recurs every year
in Vietnam, but the situation this time is the most serious, says Nguoi Lao
Dong. In each of the previous years, the country had around 10,000 patients
only, while this year has seen a manifold increase.
Pham Song, former minister of health, says on
Nguoi Lao Dong that provinces and cities hard hit by the disease should
formally announce the epidemic, though he admits that such localities might not
want to do so for fear of the bad reputation.
“I think several southern localities like HCMC
and Dong Nai Province should have formally announced the epidemic for long,”
the former health minister is quoted on Nguoi Lao Dong.
On Lao Dong, head of the ministry’s Preventive
Medicine Department Nguyen Van Binh expects that the epidemic will ease in the
next one or two months, as often seen in its normal cycle. However, he is also
quoted as saying that “the disease with all its complications will continue in
the coming time due to the lack of special-treatment medicines and effective
prevention vaccines.”
Tuoi Tre in visiting Children Hospital No. 1
in HCMC this Tuesday observed that 150 children were receiving treatment for
the hand-foot-mouth disease there, with 85% being transported to the city
clinic from other southern provinces.
If the Health Ministry is to perform its duty
for the sake of the public health, says local media, it should not wait any
longer to make the formal announcement. “Or should it wait for the death toll
to rise further before making a move?” ponders Lao Dong.
Son Nguyen - The
Saigon Times Daily
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